I apologise for being absent for some time. You can thank our dear department of labour for that. I have been embroiled in a dispute regarding the de-registration of an employers organisation. It seems that the Registrar of Trade Unions is hell bent on deregistering as many Trade Unions or Employers Organisations as possible. At this stage the motive is unclear but in my opinion, it is not motivated by altruistic concern. A number of organisations have been de-registered for financial irregularities. I do not have any issue with this because I believe that the only justification that limitations or the impositions regarding the registration of trade unions and employers organisations can have is to protect their members ( and by extension members of the public) from being fleeced or having their money used for unauthorised or otherwise illegitimate purposes. However the department has de-registered a number of Trade Unions and Employer Organisations that in the registrars infinite wisdom do not constitute "genuine " employers organisations. This clearly smacks of the imposition of value judgements by a person not even democratically elected. I know that this practice is being constitutionally challanged in matters that are pending before the Labour Court. I hope that sanity prevails but I am certainly not holding my breath. The Labour Court it seems is more than willing to protect the registrar. On balance, the net effect of this strategy will be to undermine the stability of Labour Relations. I say this because a number of what are in my view responsible employer organisations are being or have been de-registered. When I say responsible organisations, I mean organisations that are professionally run, who conduct themselves in an ethical manner and who have over a period of time created close relationships between the employers they represent and the labour they employ. The registrar has often cast the reasons for the de-registration in the widest possible terms so as constitute no reasons at all and have de-registered these associations without first engaging them in a meaningful way with the purpose of remedying practices which the department finds offensive.
One of the registrar's "beefs" is that the Trade Union and Employer Organisation is being used as fronts by attorneys and dare I say it "Labour Consultants" to represent their clients in the CCMA and Labour Court. One obvious way to remove this problem is to open up the right to represent in these fora. In the United Kingdom and in Botswana, anybody can represent anyone else in the employment tribunals and in the Industrial Court respectively. Why not do the same thing here? Those jurisdictions did not descend into chaos. The argument is that firstly the limitation on representation was and is a negotiated settlement between Business, Labour and the State. In other words it was negotiated between anybody but the ordinary South African citizen. Big business, organised labour and the state do not speak for the average person who has the misfortune of finding themselves at the CCMA for whatever reason. I suspect that if you had to conduct a survey amongst South African citizens that the current limitation on representation at the CCMA and Labour Court would not be supported by the majority. The other argument against this is that it would allow unscrupulous "fly by night" consultants with little or no knowledge, skills or experience in labour litigation to operate in the various dispute resolution fora. I do not believe that the current restrictions on representation are a panacea to this evil. In my experience (and I appear on average in the CCMA and Labour Court three times a week) officials from so called "genuine " and well established trade unions such as NUMSA and SACCAWU have minimal litigation skills and often lose cases because of a lack of skill. The most highly regulated group i.e legal practitioners are expressly excluded from representing litigants in the most common type of disputes before the CCMA i.e dismissal disputes for misconduct and incapacity. It is also argued that lawyers complicate and extend the life of disputes. I believe this to be a myth. In my experience when a litigant is unrepresented, it is likely to take longer to resolve that dispute. I suspect that the restrictions on representation further vested interests of the established trade unions. It is high time that this monopoly is broken and we adopt a more mature, practical and principaled approach to this issue.
Let me know your views.
Enjoy your weekend, over and out.
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